Under My Skin (on hold)

Chapter 2- I Will Not Bow

Ben stepped out of the recording studio into the room where his band was sitting and relaxing, listening to him record the vocals for the song he had finished a week or two earlier. They liked the song a lot, but they had begun to worry about their frontman, songwriter and best friend. They knew something was not right but they didn't know how to help him.

Ben had made it clear that he didn't want their help, either. Whatever they had to offer him to make him feel better, he didn't want. He didn't want to be pitied.

The time he spent away from the band was so Ben didn't go insane. He couldn't handle being around anyone for too long, he would start to feel alone and awkward around the people he was closest to, even. He never used to be like this, but he realized that he didn't want to be left out, so he stopped participating.

"Yo, Ben, are you doing alright, man?"

"I'm fine." He blatantly said to them in reply. He didn't have to think about what he was saying, because it had become his first reaction to say that he was okay when he really wasn't. That was his first lie.

"Are you sure? You really haven't been yourself and we want to help in any way we can."

"You can't help me, because I'm fine and I don't need help." That was his second lie.

"I don't know, Ben. You're not as cheery, you're distant from us and things just aren't right with you. I can feel it."

"You'll know when I'm not okay, so don't worry."

"Yeah, but maybe then it'll be too late."

Benjamin lived on the surface. He showed the world what he wanted them to see and he didn't go much deeper than that, afraid of what would come if he trusted them with so much more than he was used to.

More often than not, Ben felt like a stranger in his own life. He found himself looking into his life from the outside. He didn't feel like he was really a part of the things he was involved with, like his band. He didn't feel good enough. His biggest enemy was unarguably himself. He was his biggest critic, to the point where he was dancing on the brink of destruction.

The worst part wasn't the fact that he thinks he doesn't know, it was how he knew it and felt nothing.

He had come to associate what was happening to what he was feeling, which was nothing. It would hit him like a kick in the teeth when he actually felt what he was feeling. Ben, in the meantime, had shut the world away. He wasn't going to break, give into anybody or succumb to what he didn't feel worthy of his time. He had become stone cold and nothing was going to get through to him.

Bethany could see right through him. To her, he was completely transparent when he thought he was solid steel. She saw the emptiness in his eyes and the hatred he held within him. She knew almost everything he was going through because he had made it obvious to everyone around him that he was neck deep in a pile of shit.

She didn't care. Neither did he.

She thought that if he lived differently then he would be happier, but he had passed the will to change. That was his own fault, a failure of his internal design, and that was his fatal flaw. Either way, she didn't care about him or anything he had to offer. She had tried to help him but he was past her control. Little did she know that she needed a bit of saving herself.

It was as if she thought he was drowning and tried to throw him a line when she was the one drowning in reality. He thought the same of her. They both assumed that their problems were greater than the others'. They didn't even try to understand each other and what they were going through.

Bethany is better at hiding her shit than he is. That much is a fact. But it didn't matter how they weighted their problems, a problem was still a problem. They needed to help each other, but neither was willing to try. It was mostly because they had attempted to in the past, but they didn't offer the kind of help the other needed.

Their situation was, truthfully, a huge misunderstanding and a failure to communicate. They didn't know that in order to fully understand a person, you have to pretend to walk around in their skin for a while and see how things are from their point of view.

To most, it was a simple metaphor for how to deal with those around them. To Karma, it was Ben and Bethany's punishment for treating each other like they did. She took it literally and decided to turn their world upside down, and see what happens when they walk around in each other's skin- for real.